A mother who appeared to be the perfect parent, strangled her 11-year-old son to death because she was fed up with him playing on his cell phone late into the night during COVID lockdown.
Police in Brazil said they charged Alexandra Dougokenski with son Rafael’s murder on July 2 after she confessed to the shocking crime.
The 33-year-old divorced mum of two initially tried to divert attention away from herself by claiming the child had run away from home following an argument over his behaviour.
Investigators launched an extensive search, with the help of sniffer dogs and anxious family and friends, in the forest close to the family’s house in Planato, Rio Grande do Sul state.
When the search failed to find the boy, she broke down and confessed that she had strangled him with a clothes line in a rage.
The suspect claimed she “couldn’t live with the lie anymore” and needed to off load the “burden” on her conscience.
Ten days after he disappeared, she revealed where the schoolboy’s remains had been hidden.
The body was found on May 25 in a large cardboard box in the garage of a neighbour’s house just five metres away from the family’s property.
The badly decomposing corpse was wrapped in a sheet with a plastic bag placed over the head.
Loss of control
Dougokenski’s confession followed a month-long investigation that included the reconstruction of the events that led to the boy’s death.
Chief Constable Eibert Moreira said at a press conference on Thursday: “Alexandra originally claimed she had inadvertently killed her son.
“She said that after scolding (Rafael) for spending several sleepless nights fiddling with his cell phone, something that had been bothering her for a while, she decided to give him two Diazepam tablets around midnight to make him sleep.”
The accused described the victim as very agitated and said she hoped the medication would calm him down. But when she woke up around 2 am, her son was still on his phone.
‘Her story didn’t add up’
Chief Morreira said: “When we first questioned (Alexandra) she told us Rafael had died from an accidental overdose.
“She said he was lying motionless on his bed when she entered his room. His body was cold and his lips had turned blue.
“But her story didn’t add up because she had already informed us that he was awake even after taking the pills.”
The suspect changed her version of events after the forensic report revealed the child had ligature marks around his neck, indicating he had been strangled to death.
She admitted going into a rage and losing ‘control of the situation’ upon discovering the boy, who had not attended school for two months because of the lockdown rules during the Covid-19 pandemic, was still not sleeping.
She grabbed a clothes line, fashioned it into a noose and returned to his bedroom. Rafael was alive when she strung the rope around his shoulders and not under his armpits, before dragging him off the bed, causing the cord to slip up to his neck and tighten.
Police argued this demonstrated an intent to kill.
The chief constable said: “(Rafael) struggled, fell and hurt his ribs. Forensics showed evidence of the injury to his body.
“(Alexandra) told us she couldn’t bear to see what had happened and left him asphyxiating in the room.
“When she returned and saw that he wasn’t moving, she covered his head with a plastic bag so as not to see his face.”
It was after this that she carried Rafael’s lifeless body to the neighbour’s house and dumped the remains in the box. The owners were away and had left the keys in her care.
She reported the child missing the following day.
But officers grew suspicious when the mother gave precise details of what her son was wearing which included a Grêmio football club shirt, black sweatpants, slippers, and prescription glasses.
She originally claimed to have woken up in the morning to find the schoolboy gone but she hadn’t seen him leave.
Concerns were further heightened by the suspect’s demeanour during a video appeal in which she called for him to return home, saying he was ‘much loved and missed’.
“She appeared extremely cold and controlled,” Moreira remarked.
“This was a warning sign that there was something more terrible to uncover.”
Boy’s final video
Those who knew the victim described him as a quiet and sweet-natured boy who adored his mother, and an intelligent student who never got into trouble at school and excelled at maths.
One of the last videos before he died, shows him reading a self-penned poem, written for Mother’s Day, in which he thanked the suspect for being his mum.
‘My heart is broken for ever’
Rafael’s father, Rodrigo Winques lamented: “If only I could have prevented this. He was a defenceless, loving and innocent child. A piece of me has died too. My heart is broken for ever.”
Those who knew Dougokenski described her as a devoted parent who couldn’t be faulted for the care she gave to Rafael and his older brother, aged 17.
But the appearance of parental perfection hid a sinister and dark reality.
To find out what the motivation was behind the crime, police analysed the suspect’s character and discovered she was a ‘disciplinarian and methodical’ person.
The police chief said: “It appears she liked to dominate and control her children, their environment and the people around her.
They believe Rafael’s ‘disobedience’ was the reason he died.
Police case
According to detectives, the mother was obsessed with cleanliness and ran a strict and meticulously organised home.
The clothes in the wardrobe were all arranged according to their colours. Red hangers were on one side and white ones on the other. Shoes were also lined up by colour and type.
The cupboard doors in the kitchen had a list of items and the quantity of food stored in each one pinned on them. The contents in the fridge were carefully arranged into pots and containers.
The bare brick walls inside the house were covered with curtains. Investigators believe that the drapes were hung to hide the lack of symmetry of the raw brick work.
Most notable was the suspect’s reaction when she returned to the property for the reconstruction of the crime scene on June 18.
Moreira said: “During our investigation, a lot of things inside the house had been turned upside down. We thought Alexandra would breakdown with despair when she entered because of her loss.
“Instead, to our surprise, she became distraught when she saw a photograph was not in the place where she had left it, and angry that objects had been moved around.
“We believe Rafael broke his mother’s rules and he paid the price for doing so with his life.”
The victim’s brother, who was in his bedroom on the night of the crime, was awake but wearing headphones, and did not hear what was going on. He is not a suspect in the case.
The accused has been charged with triple qualified homicide, which includes killing for a futile reason, strangulation, and the defencelessness of the victim. The maximum penalty is 38 years in prison.
